This list of companies selected for top financial strength characteristics could be valuable to do-it-yourself, conservative, risk averse individual stock or bond investors, as a starting place to begin looking for suitable opportunities.

From the thousands of companies available in the US, this list of 38 companies represents some of those with the greatest fundamental financial strength.

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To develop the list we identified those companies rated in all of these three ways:

(1) better than B+ for Earnings and Dividends Strength by S&P,

(2) better than B++ for Financial Strength by Value Line

(3) pay some level of current dividend, have a tangible equity, and long-term debt less than 1/2 of book equity.

There are many other strong companies, but having two noted analytical firms (one qualitative in approach and the other quantitative in approach) rate them highly for financial strength, plus imposing

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The New York Review of Books has published a review of the film Letter to Anna: The Story of Journalist Politkovskaya’s Death, written by Amy Knight. You can order a copy of the DVD of this documentary here. The trailer is here. By the time of Chaika's announcement—over ten months after the murder—the investigation of the Politkovskaya killing was falling apart. The names of the suspects had already been leaked to the press, thus hampering efforts to successfully prosecute them. More importantly, Chaika himself was no longer in charge of the case; it had been handed over to a new "investigative committee," which was part of the prosecutor's office, but not under Chaika's jurisdiction. The committee had been formed as the result of a bitter feud between Putin's two main security chiefs, FSB director Nikolai Patrushev and Viktor Cherkesov, ...

Wall Street Journal reports gold coin shortage, cites GATA, and the US Mint suspension of Gold Eagle Sales

Submitted by cpowell on 09:21AM ET Thursday, August 21, 2008. Section: Daily Dispatches 12:15p ET Thursday, August 21, 2008

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

The Wall Street Journal today published a long story on the cover of its Money & Investing section about the U.S. Mint’s suspension of sales of 1-ounce gold eagle coins. Like GATA, even the Journal apparently could not get an official statement out of the Mint, but the newspaper did quote from a memorandum purportedly sent by the Mint to coin dealers. The Journal’s story, appended here, quotes GATA at the end.

GATA was contacted today by an international news organization that is also interested in the story and also has been unable to get comment from the Mint. The Mint’s unaccountability is, to say the least, disrespectful and incompetent. But

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